The Book of Job
by Fr. William Most
Introduction:
Job consists of a prose introduction and conclusion -
which may have existed separately from the rest, and of a
large poetic core. Satan - who seems not to be the same as the
devil, merely an opponent - tells God that Job would not obey
if he were afflicted. God gives permission to afflict Job
greatly. So Job's suffering is permitted as a test - an idea
that is a bit new, for usually suffering had been considered
as a divine punishment for sin (and it could be that).
Three friends of Job come, but do not really console
him: they say he must have sinned or the affliction would not
have come. Job insists on his innocence. The fact that God
could afflict an innocent man disturbs Job, he almost becomes
angry with God at some points. Finally he asks the Almighty to
answer him. God does speak from a storm: Would Job condemn God
so he, Job could seem just? Job confesses he has not reacted
well, he has tried to deal with things above him, he repents
in dust and ashes. God directs Job's friends to ask Job to
pray for them, so their fault may be pardoned. In the prose
conclusion Job gets back much more than what he had lost.
The Book of Job is concerned with the problem of
suffering. Only part of the truth had been revealed at that
time. Before, people had tended to think suffering was a
punishment for sin. It sometimes is that,but not always.Yet
that belief persisted even into the time of Christ.Cf.the
question:"who has sinned" This man or his parents? (Jn 9.2-3).
Job will make a degree of progress,namely, that it comes
out clearly that not always is suffering a punishment for sin.
Yet the positive value of suffering remained to be made clear
by Jesus.
There is however a problem: We know we are adopted
children of God. Children, precisely because they are
children, have a claim to be in their Father's house,which is
heaven. How and why then is there any need or role for
suffering?
The Council of Trent (DS 1532 and 1582) taught three
things: 1)that we receive justification with no merit at all.
Justification means the first reception of sanctifying
grace,which in turn means that the indwelling of the Holy
Trinity in our souls makes us sharers in the divine nature
(2.Peter 1.4) and adopted children of God. 2)So we have a
*claim* to go to our Father's house.A claim can be called a
merit.Yet it is a different kind of merit.Although it is as it
were a ticket to heaven, it is a ticket we get for
free,without at all earning it. 3) Once we have this status of
children,sharing in the very nature of the Father,any good we
do has a special added dignity, which makes it suitable that
He increase our ability to know Him face to face.Since that
vision is infinite, but we are finite receptacles, our
capability to receive could grow indefinitely, for it will
never reach the infinite. That growth is what we call growth
in sanctifying grace. And even though the first grace-the
basic ticket itself - is not at all earned, there is a sense
in which additions to the ability to see face to face can be
earned. Yet we do not earn these as individuals.It is only
inasmuch as we are a)members of Christ and b) like Him, that
we get in on the claim which HE established.
In this sense we could say what one student once said in
a class about salvation: "You can't earn it,but you can blow
it". That is, children do not have to earn the love and care
of their parents. Yet they could earn to lose it.
So now we have focused our problem. We can rightly say:
All we have to do it to keep from earning to lose this ticket.
How then does this fit in with this such texts as
Romans 8.17: "We are heirs of God,fellow heirs with Christ,
PROVIDED THAT we suffer with Him,so we may also be glorified
with Him"? Similarly Jesus Himself said that He is the vine,
and we the branches (John 15.1-6). The Father will prune a
fruitful branch, to make it bear still more fruit. Again, the
Epistle to the Hebrews (12.5-13) quotes the Old Testament
(Proverbs 3.11-12) saying that the Father disciplines us as
children.That is a sign He cares for us,loves us.
The solution is really easy: If we remained always
perfectly innocent children,there would be no need at all for
purification. But the problem is that we all do sin (1 John
1.8).
Therefore: a)The Holiness of our Father wants His
children clean enough to enter His house. Some sin so gravely
as to even lose divine sonship. Others do not lose it,but
become dirty children,who need a cleanup.
We could explain it this way:The Holiness of the Father
loves all that is right and good.But a sinner disturbs the
harmony of order,and disturbs His image which He had given us,
not only in creating us to His own image and likeness, but
still more by making us conformed to the image of His
son (Romans 8.29). Sin disturbs that image,Mortal sin destroys
the image of His Son in us; venial sin may as it were tarnish
it. Put it another way: The scales of the objective order need
to be rebalanced if we, His children,have put it even somewhat
out of order by our personal sins. The sinner takes from one
pan of a two pan scales something he has no right to have. It
might he so grave as to cause him to lose divine sonship--
mortal sin.But it can be something lesser,which while it does
not cause us to lose that sonship, yet it does mean we are
bad,we might say,dirty children.We need to be cleaned up. The
essential, the infinite work of rebalancing the scales is done
by Jesus,our Brother,with whom He are heirs as Romans 8.17
says. Yet the same line,Romans 8.17 also says we are heirs
"provided that we suffer with Him."
As we indicated, by mortal sin we could even lose our
status as sons of the FAther and brothers and sisters of
Jesus. Yet even lesser,venial sins,make us not clean enough to
get in without some clean up or polishing.So that needs to be
done. In other words, each one of us has an obligation to
rebalance,by suffering,for the imbalance even smaller sins
have caused.
b)Just as a really good Father trains His
children by discipline to make them grow up and be what they
should be,so our Father in heaven,disciplines us for the same
purpose,as we said above,citing Hebrews and Proverbs.
c)If we really love our Father,we will want to
see that He gets the pleasure of giving to all those whom He
wants to be His children.But some of them have even forfeited
that position,while others are somewhat soiled. In either
case,in order that He may be able to give His favors to
them,they need to be open. But many of them do little or
nothing towards rebalancing the scales for their own sins. So
that they may be put in the condition to receive,we can by
taking on difficult things, make up for them.This is love for
them - it is also love of the Father,for it gives Him the
opening to give to them, while at the same time it gives them
the openness they need to receive. (So we see in passing:love
of God and love of neighbor are found in one and the same
action). Hence St.Paul said,in Colossians 1.24: "I fill up the
things that are lacking to the sufferings of Christ in my
flesh,for His body,which is the Church." Of course,nothing is
lacking to the sufferings of Christ considered as
an individual. But the whole Christ,Head and members,can be
deficient. Paul wants to do what we just said,to make up for
the a lack of opening in other members of Christ.
We gather,there is triple reason for suffering. It
cleans up the tarnished image of the Father and of Christ in
us; it helps us grow to spiritual maturity to be fully ready
to enter His house; it helps give the Father the pleasure of
being able to give to other, deficient children.
What was known of this beautiful picture at the tome of
Job? As we said, many, such as Job's so-called friends,
insisted that all suffering comes from sin. The book makes it
finally clear that not always does suffering come from sin.
But clearly, Job did not see the full expanses of the splendid
picture we have just unfolded.
Could they have reached at least part of this picture?
There were grounds for doing that.First, they knew God is our
Father-- cf.Isaiah 63.16: "Even if Abraham were not to know us
or Israel to acknowledge us, You ,Lord, are our Father." And
Hosea 11.1: "Out of Egypt I have called my son",that is, the
whole people of Israel.Cf.also Jer 31.9. But they did not
know in how full a sense that is true.They knew He had made
them,yet.But they did not know that He gave them a share in
His own divine nature. Further,they knew that sin is a debt -
that truth stands out all over the OT,the Intertestamental
literature of the Jews, the New Testament and the writings of
the Rabbis and the Fathers (on this cf.the appendix to
Wm.Most, The Thought of St.Paul, pp.289-301). They knew
further the atoning power of suffering for others. This came
out specially strongly in the fourth Servant Song in Isaiah
53. It was found also elsewhere in the Scriptures,cf 2 Mac
7.37; Dan 3.35 & 40; Job 42.7-8..
Yet,even though the grounds,we might say premises,for
reaching these conclusions were present and were known,they
did not draw the implications from them. Similarly, Jesus
confuted the Sadducees who denied the resurrection by citing
for them the text of Exodus 3.6: "'I am the God of Abraham, of
Isaac,and of Jacob.' He is not the God of the dead but of the
living". - Yet,did most Jews draw that deduction from those
early words? We doubt it very much. Similarly, although they
had,as we said, the premises to reach much of the picture we
have painted,yet they did not really reach nearly all of it.
Instead in the conclusion to Job,the solution seems to be
merely that God would give back more than what He had taken
away,but do it in this life.
Job contradicts? M.Duggan,in The Consuming Fire
(Ignatius,1991) has some unacceptable statements on Job; 1)On
p.435: that the debate the very justice of God. So Job asks
God: ..."is it right for you to attack me, in contempt for
what you yourself have made....? (10.3). But Job is merely
thinking his way through the puzzle.He is not really attacking
God. If he were doing that then at the end God was angry at
the "friends" of Job,and said (42.7) "...you have not spoken
right of me,as my servant Job has done." 2) On p.436 Duggan
says Job suspects God uses his power for purposes more
destructive than constructive-- God casts down mountains in
anger,shakes the earth's pillars.-- but these expressions
merely bring out Job's understanding of the awful majesty and
power of God. The language is borrowed largely from poems of
Ugarit, when also came powerful descriptions of God's majesty
in the Psalms. 3) On p.436 again Duggan says that Job wants
his day in court, when he can prove the injustice of God! --
but Job is magnificent poetry, semitic expressions at that, in
which Job vents his feelings .Again,he does not really charge
God with injustice -- had he done that God would not have said
in 42.7 that Job had spoken rightly.--A fuller
explanation,based on theological method, for these texts will
be given in our comments on chapters 9-10,below.
Genre: Is Job meant to be historical? Not likely. Just as
Pope John Paul II said Genesis 1-3 was myth - not meaning
fairytale,but rather an ancient story put together to bring
out some things true in themselves (Cf.is Original Unity of
Man and Woman. St.Paul Editions,1981 p.28 and note), so it is
likely with the book of Job. Its real purpose is to explore
the problem of suffering, of which we spoke above.
Introduction: We learn that Job was a man of Uz. Its location
is unknown. Some today put it somewhere in the desert south of
the Dead Sea,perhaps near Edom (Lam 4.21.Cf.Jer 25.20). Others
follow Josephus and Christian tradition in putting it south of
Damascus.Cf.Gen 10.23. But location is not important.for the
story is as we said above,just a vehicle for presenting some
truths in beautiful poetry.
At the start,Job is fabulously wealthy and blessed in
sons and daughters.But then we are taken to the court of
God.the sons of God are there,seemingly ,angels.B ut the satan
is also there - the Hebrew word is just a general term for the
opponent. In Numbers 22.22 (cf.22.32) an angel who blocks the
way for Balaam is called angel and also is called the
satan,the one who opposes.
In Job the word has not yet taken on the special later
meaning of a chief devil.He is merely an opponent. God asks
satan if he has noticed Job.Satan replies:Job has no trouble
fearing God:God has given him everything.But take something
away and see what he will do.God gives permission,and satan
takes away everything from Job.Then God says:See what I said!
Satan replies:Yes,but let me touch him personally and see.So
it is done. Job stricken with loathsome sores from head to
foot.He sat in ashes scraping himself with a potsherd. His
wife,a foolish woman, urged him to curse God and die.Job of
course refused.
Then three friends of Job heard of his trouble,Eliphaz
the Temanite (probably an Edomite.Gen 36.4 says an Eliphaz
was the firstborn of Esau,from who descended the Edomites,and
Teman was son of Eliphaz:v.11); Bildad the Shuhite (Bildad is
a nonHebrew name, perhaps standing for Lord Adad,the storm
god.He knows wisdom tradition and uses it against Job.
Shuites were descendants of Abraham through Keturah and lived
in the land of the east); and Zophar the Naamathite (no
agreement of scholars on the location of Naamah. Perhaps it
was somewhere in north Arabia or Edom).
They came to see him,and then sat on the ground without
speaking for seven days and seven nights - a fine bit of
semitic exaggeration of course.
Job's opening Speech: Chapter 3. Job curses the day of his
birth in colorful language. He calls on those who curse the
day to curse it - they would be men like Balaam who have a
special ability of effective cursing. They can rouse up the
Leviathan,the mythical monster of the sea.
His whole speech amounts to saying: I wish I had never
been born.He says that then he would be lying down with kings
and other great men of the past. This could imply an
expectation of an afterlife even before a resurrection. We
will comment more on this matter in connection with 19.25
below.
Eliphaz,in chapters 4 and 5: He was from Teman, an Edomite
city noted for wisdom. At first,it sounds as though
E was really concerned with the welfare of J, but still could
not resist the temptation to give J some good instruction:
"You have instructed many,but you yourself are impatient." But
he quickly adds:Who has ever perished when he was innocent--
implying J is not innocent.E is expressing the common old
belief that all suffering is punishment for sin.Therefore Job
must have sinned. Then to strengthen his point, he speaks,in
an imaginative way,of a vision he had at night -did he really
assert he had that vision? within genre rules not necessarily
so. In it a voice asked: Can a man be righteous before God?
God charges even his angels with error. But J is acting like a
fool- in wisdom literature this means one who does not pay
proper attention to God.
But Eliphaz adds something,in 5.17-27: God exalts those
who are lowly. God may wound, but He binds up again.If Job
repents as he should, then he will see his descendants into
his old age.The thought is the same as in Proverbs 3.11-12
[Need not imply author of Job had seen Proverbs or vice
versa-- That thought was probably in circulation]. Yet Job has
just lost all his descendants!
Job replies to Eliphaz' first speech: chapters 6 & 7:Job
ignores the thought just mentioned.Probably his suffering was
too great to appreciate the advice practically. And perhaps he
would feel that to say that would be an admission of guilt -
which Job insists he does not have. Further,there could be a
realistic situation: often when another is speaking,the one
who should listen does not really listen,he is preoccupied
with what he wants to say next. So Job continues: Oh I wish
God would crush me and cut me off.I have not denied what the
Holy One says [We recall that the Holiness of God is that
quality in virtue of which He loves all that is right.So Job
is expressing the rightness of God]. Man's life is hard,says
Job.
In 7.6-7 we read important words of Job:" My life goes by
faster than the shuttle of a weaver.. my days come to their
end without hope.... My eye will never again see good." We
note that Job sees no possible relief in this life. Therefore
when in 19.25 he speaks of a future hope, it must be not in
this life,but in a future life.(cf.also 13.15).We will discuss
this more fully at 19.25.
In 7.20 Job also says God frightens him with visions
(v.14). He adds (v 20): "If I sin, what do I do to you, who
scrutinize men?" I spite of language,even used today,that sin
offends God,Job knows that God cannot be harmed. Yet God
examines most closely the sins of men - very true.But His
mercy is true too, He readily forgives those who repent. The
last verse (31) even seems to have J implying he might have
sinned.That could merely be: Even if I have sinned,please
pardon me. It is best taken as just emotional language,as so
much of the poetic part of this work is.
First Speech of Bildad. He shows no sympathy for J.He calls
J's words a great wind.He insists God does not pervert
justice.He tells J to just pray to God and God will listen and
reward J. God will not reject a blameless man- with the
implication that somehow J is not blameless.Eliphaz had
seemed at first to have some feeling for J,but then lost
patience. The other Two, Bildad and Zophar,seem to have no
feeling at all for J.
Chapters 9-10:Job replies to first speech of Bildad: Some
think Job here falls God unjust,and says He may afflict
without cause.
Part of the explanation of the puzzle lies in the fact
that the Jews normally attributed to God things they knew He
only permitted: In Amos 3.6: "If evil comes to a city,has not
the Lord caused it?" In 1 Samuel 4.3: "Why did the Lord strike
us today before the face of the Philistines?" In the account
of the plagues in Exodus, a few times the Pharaoh was close to
letting them go, but then although a few times the text says
that he,the king,hardened his own heart,mostly it says that
God hardened the king's heart.
But more importantly, we need to observe splendid
theological method at work here: In studying divine things one
can at times meet two conclusions, which seem to clash head-
on. Of course, then he will recheck his work, but the two
still are there. Then he must not deny either or strain
either.He must simply hold both,even if that seems utterly
impossible.
In accord with this method: First,we must notice one of
two truths,expressed in verses 1-4: God is awesome justice,and
no man can be just before God. He adds that God's power is
tremendous - He can overthrow mountains, shake the earth,He
made the stars. The helpers of Rahab 9 mythical sea monster,
personifying chaos) cannot stand against Him. Secondly,He may
afflict without cause: v.17: "He multiples my wounds without
cause." But Job can hold both things: that God is supreme
justice, and yet God may afflict without cause. Job does not
know how to put them together. But in splendid theological
method he holds to both. Later,in the revelation of Jesus, we
could see how to put these together:there is another life,and
likeness to Jesus in suffering is of supreme worth. But even
at that time, they could and did say: God disciplines His
children - even Proverbs and Job knew this.
Semites did not find it hard to use this method of
holding two things: They could readily take two seemingly
incompatible statements without calling it a clash,and without
drawing an implication. Thus in Matthew 4.6: "When you pray,
pray in secret"- but yet in Mt:5.16: "Let your light shine
before men, so they may see your good works."
The Fathers of the Church in the first centuries in a
similar way made both negative and affirmative statements on
two great questions: 1)Did Jesus really advance in wisdom (Lk
2.52 and 2) Did He know the day of judgment (Mk 13.32. Most of
the Fathers wrote opposite statements on these two passages.
(Cf.Wm.Most,The Consciousness of Christ, chapter 6,for over
100 patristic texts). There are similar pairs of statements on
the equality of the Logos with the Father in several
Fathers,especially Origen,who both affirmed equality,and yet
implied a denial of equality. Again on membership in the
Church,we find very many Fathers who made both strict
statements,sounding almost like L.Feeney,and yet made
astoundingly broad statements. On this cf.Wm.Most, Our
Father's Plan. Appendix.
In confirmation we recall again that at the end of the
dialogue,God says (42.7) that Job has spoken rightly.
After such statements, Job returns to wishing he had
never been born.
Chapter 11:First Speech of Zophar: Instead of consoling Job,
he is harsh,calls him man full of talk,and says God exacts of
him less than he deserves! If only Job would repent,his life
would be brighter than midday.
Chapters 12-14: Job answers Zophar: Zophar had seemed to claim
wisdom.Job says he is as wise as Zophar:everyone knows the
things Z has said.
He says that God may shut a man in,and no one can open
for him.This is the sort of thing we commented on in remarks
on the reply of J to Bildad. God can make counsellors
foolish,can take away the ability to speak from those who are
trusted.God uncovers the deeps which had been dark.He makes
nations great,then makes them fall.He takes away understanding
from princes-- we think now of Isaiah 29.14 where God said
since they did not worship Him rightly: "Wisdom will perish
from the wise."
So J says:What you know,I know too. He calls his friends
"worthless physicians"- and they were that. J says He knows
that if he were allowed to plead his case before God,he would
be vindicated,so convinced is he of his own innocence.
But a man's life is short: why should God bother with
him at all -- an echo of Psalm 8? Why should
God bother to look at man? If a tree dies, it may sprout again
- but when man breathes his last, there is no more.He never
rises again to the present life.
That thought leads into a difficult passage,strangely
badly misunderstood by some,in 14.13-22.
Did Job, as some say, deny a future life in 14:13 ff?
Not at all. Here is an outline of what Job really said in
chapter 14: In verses 10-12: Even though a tree may put forth
shoots again, a man who dies does not come back, i.e, not to
this life. In verse 13: Job indulges in a poetic fancy - he
knows it is only a fancy: He wishes God would hide him in
Sheol until His anger would pass, and then remember Job again.
This is a fancy for certain, but we must remember Job is high
poetry, and such poetry can indulge in fanciful things. Marvin
Pope,In Anchor Bible, Job does take this view of verse 13, and
Pope points out that Is 26:20 indulges a similar fancy: let
the people of Judah hide in their chambers till God's wrath
passes. Amos 9:2 ff. pictures the wicked as trying in vain to
hide in Sheol, in Heaven, on Mt.Carmel or on the bottom of the
sea. Verses 14-17 continue the fancy of verse 13: "If a man
dies, will he live again? All the days of my service I would
wait until my change would come. You [God] would call, and
would answer and you would want the work of your hands. Then
You would number my steps, and not keep watch over my sin. My
transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would sew
up my iniquity. Verses 18-22 return to reality: just as a
mountain may lose strength and a rock be moved from its place,
just as waters wear away even rock, so, in the end, God
prevails, and destroys man's hope of this life. God sends him
away. In verses 21-22: Man goes to sheol, and does not know
whether his sons fare well or not, "His flesh on him has pain,
and his soul mourns over him." To sum up: Job for a moment
indulges fancy, then returns to reality: No one can win
against God, he must go to Sheol. There he will not know what
goes on on earth - as we saw earlier, even the souls of the
just there, not having the vision of God before the death of
Christ, have no normal means of knowing things on earth,
unless God gives a special revelation. But Job adds that his
flesh has pain and his soul mourns over him. This at least
seems to imply some awareness after death.
Chapter 15: Second speech of Eliphaz: A wise man,he
says,should not be so windy. Job is really doing away with the
fear of God - yet Job had given a graphic picture of God's
might in Chapter 9. Eliphaz continues, saying no man can be
clean. Why God finds fault even with His angels! So man should
fear,and not trust in emptiness. He will be paid in full by
God.
Chapters 16-17:Job's Second Reply to Eliphaz: Job calls them
"miserable comforters.Is there no end to windiness he asks?
God has worn me out,he has torn mein his anger.I was at
easy,and He broke me,even though there is no violence in my
hands.He claims his witness is in heaven while his friends
scorn him. God has made him a byword for people,and upright
men are shocked to see the state of Job.But his "friends" come
on and on again after him!
Chapter 18:Second speech of Bildad: He asks Job: How long will
Job hunt for words,and consider them as stupid cattle? The
light of the wicked is put out.His skin is consumed by
disease-- that was true of Job.West and East are appalled at
him.
Chapter 19:Second reply of Job to Bildad: Job asks:How long
will you friends torment me? This is ten times you have
attacked me.If I sinned- he is not really admitting that,this
is hypothesis-- my error remains within me,and does not harm
others. It is God who has put me in these straits. He has
walled up my way,and kindled His anger against me.He has put
my brethren far from me.He is repulsive to his wife,even young
children look down on him.He pleads:Have pity on me,my
friends.For the hand of God has touched me. Why do you pursue
me like God?. He wishes his words were written in a book,or
engraved in a rock with iron pen and lead forever.
Next comes the most famous line in the entire book,about
which there has been much discussion. He says he knows that
his redeemer,his goel [the next of kin who had the right and
duty to rescue his kinsman in dire need], lives and at last he
will stand upon the earth. After his skin has been
destroyed,yet Job will see God from his flesh. His own eyes
shall behold this. His heart faints at the thought.
Now this passage could not mean a rescue in this life,
for in 7:6-7 Job said: "My days have passed more swiftly than
the web is cut by the weaver, and are consumed without any
hope." So he had no hope for this life - the hope must have
been for the future life. The NRSV,the RSV the NAB and the NIV
all have substantially the thought as we rendered it above. So
our rendering is at least not impossible). We will see more
in our comments later on Qoheleth and on Sirach 14:16-17).
What of fact that 19.25 seems early to speak of a
resurrection? The argument is circular: We do not know
anything so early,so this cannot be it!--What of fact that
this 19. 25 does not seem to affect general thought of Job? It
can be a flash in the pan,like the lines in the Psalms on
seeing God,though on the whole that notion seems not known so
early,unless we accept the revisions by Dahood.in the
introductions to his three volumes of Anchor Bible,Psalms On
the basis of Ugaritic,a related Semitic language,he proposed
retranslations of about 30 Psalm lines.If he is right, the
knowledge of the Jews on the future would be much earlier than
many suppose.
Chapter 20:Second Speech of Zophar: He becomes even more harsh
now.From the beginning the exulting of the wicked is
short.Wickedness is sweet in his mouth,but his food turns
bitter in his stomach. He has crushed and abandoned the poor:
with limitless greed.But God will send fierce anger against
him.Utter darkness awaits him and a fire will devour him.The
heavens will reveal his wickedness.
Chapter 21: Job replies to second speech of Zophar:Why should
I not be impatient? Why do the wicked prosper and live long?
They tell God to depart form them,they do not want to know
His ways. One dies in prosperity.Another dies in bitterness of
soul without ever tasting good. Job adds:I know your
thoughts,your schemes against me.There is nothing left of your
answers but falsity.
Chapter 22:Third Speech of Eliphaz: No man can be profitable
to God,nor does it give the Almighty pleasure if a man is
righteous.Is not your wickedness great? Then Eliphaz makes
specific,totally rash charges,with no foundation.He says Job
has stripped the naked,has sent widows away empty.That is why
the snares are about him.So agree with God and you will he at
peace.Return to Him and humble yourself. God abases the
proud,but helps the humble. He delivers the innocent man.
Chapters 23-24:Reply of Job to Eliphaz: Job says his pain is
bitter.He wishes he could present his case to God in court.He
would be acquitted forever by
God. God knows the way I have taken,when God has finished
trying me,I will come out like gold. Yet I am terrified at
His presence.Why does the Almighty let the evil prosper? God
pays no attention to the groan of the dying and the suffering.
Chapter 25:Third reply of Bildad: Her seems to be giving up
on Job.He repeats what Eliphaz said in chapter 22: How can a
man be righteous before God? Even the moon is not bright or
the stars clean in His sight--how much less man. Implication:
You,Job,claim to be clean!
Chapters 27-31:Final Reply of Job to the Three: What helpers
you are! God is all powerful:Sheol is naked before Him.He
hangs the earth on nothing,binds up the waters in thick
clouds.The pillars of heaven shake at his rebuke.His power
stills the sea and smites Rahab-- and these are only the outer
edges of His power.
As God lives,I will not speak what is false as long as I
have breath.I will not put way my integrity. My heart does not
reproach me.all of you have seen it yourselves:why have you
become so vain? The wicked man does receive his deserts from
the Almighty.
But where can Wisdom be found? Man does not know the
way.The deep says:Wisdom is not in me.Gold and silver and
jewels cannot equal wisdom.It is hid from the eyes of all the
living. Abaddon and Death say they have heard a rumor of
Wisdom.But God understands the way to wisdom.He knows its
place.He said:Behold,the fear of the Lord: that is wisdom.
O,I wish I were as I was in the past when God watched
over me.When I went to the city gate,young men saw me,and
pulled back.The aged rose and stood.Princes put their hand on
their mouth.For I delivered the poor,helped the fatherless.So
the blessing of the one about to die came to me.I made the
heart of the widow sing for job.I put on righteousness like a
garment.I was eyes to the blind,feet to the lame,a father to
the poor.I broke the fangs of the evil. So men listened to
me,and kept silent.After I poke they did not speak again.--
But now even young men make sport of me,men whose fathers I
would not have respected. Those who were wicked and ate the
inedible now abhor me.The spit at the sight of me.Terrors are
turned upon me.I cry to God and He does not answer.Yet I know
God will not bring me to death. Did I not weep for the man
whose day w s hard? I even made a covenant with my eyes,not to
lust for a virgin. [Some think the reference is to looking at
the goddess of fertility - but this is much less likely]. If I
have walked in falsehood, if I turned aside from the way,then
let me sow and other eat.If my heart gave in to the enticement
of a woman,then let my wife grind for another.If I withheld
anything the poor desired,if I caused the face of the widow to
fall,or if I ate my bread without sharing it,then let my arm
fall from its socket.For I feared calamity from God if I did
not do right.I could not have faced His Majesty. Let the
Almighty answer me! [End of the words of Job].
Chapters 32-37:The Long Speech of Elihu: Commentators have
discussed much the nature and quality of this long speech. The
ideas he presents are not really different from those of the
others.But he does show an overweening confidence in his own
ability to express them. Yet he does express some things in
fine poetic form.
Elihu says that since he was younger,he waited for his
elders to give their speeches. But he says he will not use
their words. Yet his heart is full of things to say,like a new
wineskin it is ready to burst.
Job says that he is clean.But he is wrong in this.God is
greater than man.Why contend against Him? Man is sometimes
warned in a dream or is chastened by pain.
What man is like Job,who drinks up scoffing as if it
were water? God will not act wickedly. God sees all the steps
of man,He knows their works.But Job speaks without knowledge
or insight.
God put kings on their thrones,and if they serve
Him,they finish their days in prosperity. But Job is full of
the judgment on the wicked.He should beware so that his own
anger might drive Job into scoffing. Can anyone understand
God's awesome power in thunder and lightning? Consider His
wondrous works. He is clothed with terrible Majesty.
Chapters 38-41:God speaks to Job out of the storm: It might
seem at first sight as though God is rebuking Job,yet at the
end in 42.7-=8 God says Job has spoken rightly. The difference
is this:Job has not understood the power and Majesty of God
sufficiently, though he has known it somewhat.But in spite of
all that, Job has not said anything contrary to God's will -
the difference is between defect in understanding,and defect
in will.
So we have here a long and poetically beautiful
presentation of the awesome power of God in creation,going
into some detail. Among other things God says He made Behemoth
sense is uncertain.It may mean the same as Leviathan, standing
for the mythical monster of the sea, which in mythology
God can overcome and tame. Or since the word is a feminine
plural,it might be an expression of the beast par excellence.
Chapter 4 2: Job answers God.Conclusion: Job properly says He
understands better the marvelous power of God,and is sorry he
has spoken with insufficient understanding.So he despises
himself in dust and ashes.
Finally the Lord spoke to the three counsellors,and
rebuked them: they had not spoken right as Job had
done.Therefore they must offer a sacrifice of seven bulls and
seven rams.But to gain acceptance,they must ask Job to pray
for them.God will accept the prayer of Job. It is very
significant here that Job is an intercessor,in spite of
foolish Protestant claims that there can be no intercessor but
Christ--based on 1 Tim 2.5.That verse speaks of a mediator who
is a) by very nature, having both divine and human natures; b)
is necessary -- only Christ was necessary; c) who can work by
his own power-- secondary mediators depend on the power of the
One par excellence Mediator. So Job is a mediator.And for that
matter, so many times,Moses was a mediator between
God and the sinful people.
After all this was done,God restored to Job twice as
much as He had taken away. This fact does not deny the
essential message of the book which is this: suffering is not
always due to sin. In Job his suffering was not due to sin.It
was for some other purpose the idea, that it is for
instruction, "discipline' is present there,as it is also in
Proverbs. But as we said in the introduction to this book of
Job, the full purpose of suffering was still to be revealed in
Jesus,even though the premises from which they might have
reached a point at least close to that conclusion were already
present.
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